On 2012-01-27, at 7:34 AM, Wojtek S wrote:
> Marv: "I don't think that disappointment with the historic experiments
> in the USSR and China can be the whole answer"
>
> [WS:] Neither do I but I think it played a major role...Socialism was
> perceived as utopia on earth and when it turned out to be just another
> dictatorship, many people felt betrayed.
>
> ...I think that an equally important factor in
> the decline of labor movements is the changes in social structure that
> occurred in the 20th century. First, peasant collectivism ... was very important in everyday life of the
> subordinate classes. However, with further transformation of social structure, especially
> in the US, brought by consumerism and suburbanization...The role of the collective
> in social life was reduced to religion - hence the importance of
> churches, which for the most part put a wet blanket on labor militancy
> and organizing (with a few exceptions, of course.) So what we
> currently have is basically atomized society of solitary nomads
> (especially in the US) dependent on corporations for their survival
> and dependent on either churches or the entertainment industry for
> social connections. This social milieu is highly toxic for labor &
> left organizing...This is why religion seems to be the main basis for most social
> movements outside Europe.
>
> Re: " I'd be interested in learning from you what better explains past
> and present political behaviour than an individual's relationship to
> the means of production."
>
> See the above. None of it could be explained by an individual's
> relationship to the means of production.
Woj, it is true that disappointment with what was popularly perceived to be socialism in China and the USSR (a perception which an enormous ideological offensive by the international bourgeoisie helped shape, of course) has powerfully affected - I'd say retarded - the development of political consciousness world wide.
Second, it is also true that what you call "consumerism and suburbanization" has played a role in fostering atomization and breaking down social solidarity. These are actually by-products of the unanticipated rise in mass living standards throughout most of the 20th century. Marxists had instead expected there to be increasing immiseration leading to revolt as a result of capitalism's "inherent contradictions" playing themselves out.
Third, religion has always been a brake on the development of political consciousness. Even where it has played a political role in organizing dissent against the existing order, as under Father Gapon in Russia or Ayatollah Khomenei in Iran, movements led by religious leaders have been no more effective than social democrats in ending capitalism and, in the very rare instances where such movements have won state power, as in Iran, they have sometimes reintroduced the most backward anti-enlightenment values and practices.
In any case, the attachment to religion is not a new phenomenon, and does little to explain the relative passivity of the mainly secular modern working class. Religion had a much more tenacious hold on the predominantly peasant societies which produced social revolutions in the 20th century. In general, we can say that the material needs of people have always taken precedence over their spiritual ones, and, where they have perceived a conflict, workers and peasants and "liberation theologians" have simply justified social revolution with recourse to their religious beliefs.
The problem with your analysis is that you look for contemporary instances of social revolution, and, finding none, conclude that this proves political behaviour is not conditioned by an individual's class position as defined by their relation to the means of production.
But political behaviour is almost always aimed at reform rather than revolution. It pits the big bourgeoisie which wants to protect the system and strengthen its hold on it against efforts to reform it by those with little or no power or property. Revolution is a very rare occurrence which occurs only when systems no longer have the capacity to reform themselves and the masses of necessity turn to its overthrow. But the big and small capitalists and farmers and those who are wage and salary earners advance their respective class interests through political action in all periods, irrespective of whether revolution is in the air or not. Their interests are expressed most starkly in revolutionary crises, but you don't have to dig very far to discover them in less turbulent times, as I tried to illustrate in my last reply to you. I'd urge you to reread my comments about the conflicting class-based political preferences typically displayed even today by the rich and powerful and "the 99%", as well as my allusion to the important distinction drawn by Marxists between a class-in-itself and a class-for-itself, in light of the above.